Fallen Characters Read Fallen
by ShannonBarlow13
Summary: Luce wakes up and suddenly realises that she is sat at a table with Daniel, Gabbe, Roland, Molly, Arriane, Annabelle, Cam and Penn with the Fallen book in the middle of the table. What happens when they read about themselves? What if this is too soon for Luce? But what if the book saves lives? Lives that were previously dead...
1. Chapter 1

**Hey guys! I'm Shannon and this is another Fallen fanfic that I have made. You can go and check my other one out if you want. Please don't forget to review - even if you're just a guest user. I dint want to waste my time doing a story that no body likes.**

I awoke with a start. Immediately, I saw a bright white room and I was sat at a white, circle table with 8 other people. Sat next to my right was a girl with purple rim glasses and a few layers of jumpers on. That was a bit unusual but I could hardly talk - I'd been going to a physiatrist since I was 7.

Sat to my left, a guy with brown and golden dreadlocks was still asleep with his head facing down on the table. In fact, all of them were still asleep.

I didn't know what to do. Were they dead? Who put me here? Why was I here? Who were these people? I'd never seen them before in my life and yet, it felt like I'd seen them a thousand times before.

Next to the girl with purple glasses was another girl with curly blonde hair and a rainbow headband in her hair. A perfectly manicured hand was slightly rested under her head - like she was supporting it.

Next to blondie, another blonde. But this was a darker blonde. A blonde that I loved instantly. I couldn't see his face but his body looked like it was built as an athlete and I loved that too. He seemed really familiar but I couldn't put my finger on it. Next to drop-dead-gorgeous, was a girl with long, black hair - very much like my own. I also couldn't see her face from here but I could tell she was pretty.

Next to her was a quite tall guy with shaggy, jet black hair that rested upon his shoulder. Even from here, I could tell that he looked quite handsome as well. He had a sunburst tattoo peaking out from the collar on his neck. It sent shivers down my spine.

Next to him was a girl with bright pink hair. Her features were slim and tall.

Next to her, and the guy with the dreadlocks, was a girl with short purple hair, cut in a pixie style. Her face had at least 10 piercings on it and she kinda reminded me of Callie. Minus the purple hair and the piercings. I know that just leaves the face but it's something about her that reminds me of Callie.

"Hello?" I called out but no one answered. "Hello?" I called out even louder but still no one answered.

I didn't just want to sit here. Hell, I didn't even know how I got here. I tried to get out of my seat but I couldn't, like someone had planked me by super glueing the seat of my chair.

With a sigh, I rested my chin upon my fist and decided to wait for the others to wake up.

Maybe about three minutes in, I was just about to fall asleep when they all shot up, gasping for air as I did. However, I wasn't prepared for this and I swear I jumped at least 4 feet into the air, letting out a deafening scream on my way. All heads turned to me and all of them were surprised apart from the girl with purple glasses.

"I thought you guys would never wake up!" I let out a sigh of relief. "Well at least I could rule you all being dead off my list. Now because I'm pretty sure I just had a heart attack when you all awoke like you'd been dead, I think I'm owed an explanation as to what. The. Hell. Just happened and where. The. Fuck. Am I?" More surprise etched across their faces. "Anyone? Yes? No? Maybe?" Still silence. I pinched the bridge of my nose. "Someone please speak. I was just starting to convince myself that I wasn't crazy after all." Still silence. I tried to get out of my seat. This time, I managed to stand up but an invisible hand punched me back down. "Hey!" I shouted. "I have the right to leave you know! I've studied law! You can't keep me here without a warrant!" I yelled again, into the air, but no answer. I put my head in my hands. "I just want to go home." I whispered.

The girl with the purple glasses coughed. "Well, um, shall we all do introductions? I know who you all are from Sword and Cross but she doesn't." She pointed towards me.

My head shot up. "Thank you! Someone who speaks!"

"We all speak. I just think they're in a state of shock."

"Luce. Lucinda Prince." I said.

"Penn. Pennyweather Van Syckle-Lockwood." That was a name to get around but I could already tell we would be fast friends.

"Y'all right Penn. we should introduce ourselves. I'm Gabbe. Or Gabriel. But I'd prefer it if you call me Gabbe." The blonde with the rainbow headband said with a southern twang.

"Gabriel. Like the angel?" I said and heard a collective gasp. "Touchy subject? Ok. That's cool. I just happen to like angels."

"No, no, that's alright honey. Yeah, like the angel. I guess you could say that."

"Roland." The guy on my left, with the dreadlocks, spoke, giving me a wave.

"Molly." The girl with the piercings said. She had attitude to her voice that made her remind me of Callie even more.

"Annabelle." The girl with pink hair said. Her voice was light and playful.

"Hey, I'm Cam." The tall, handsome guy with black hair to his shoulders said flashing me a smile. Usually, I would've gone for his type but he was one of those over confident guys. Ones that I didn't like and I couldn't help but roll my eyes.

"Arriane." She glanced towards Cam and stifled a laugh. "I like you already."

"Thanks. I think." I said as my eyes shifted to the only person who hadn't told me their name. Our eyes locked place and it was like the room and everyone else in it had fallen away.

I noticed I'd been staring a while and looked away, blushing. "Sorry." I whispered, so low that I was sure he hadn't heard it.

"It's ok." He said back. God, I loved his voice. I could listen to it all day. I could go to sleep listening to it. And those eyes, where they violet? I looked up to meet his eyes again. He was slightly blushing as well. I loved his blush. "Daniel." Daniel. I loved that name. And the way he said it! Not confident but not shy either. The moment I laid eyes upon Daniel, I knew I was going to like him. They all looked at me now and I realised that I'd only told Penn my name.

"Oh yeah, Lucinda. But most people call me Luce." I smiled a smile I hadn't smiled in a long time.

Suddenly, call it cliché but, a puff of smoke erupted in the middle of the table and a book appeared.

I grabbed it. "Fallen by Lauren Kate. Hmm." On the front cover was a girl with black hair to her waist with her head in her hands and a black dress. I flipped it over and started reading the blurb.

**Some angels are destined to fall.**

"What is this?" Roland asked and tugged the book out of my hand.

"Hey! Give it back! I love angels!" I tried to take the book but Roland looked skeptically at the book and then me.

"Why do you love angels?" The words weren't mean like I was expecting them to but soft and gentle.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I don't know?" Came out but it sounded more like a question.

"Na-ah. Not good enough."

I looked around the table and everyone's attention was on me. I took a deep breath.

"It...br...ngs...m...pees." I mumbled.

"What?"

"It...bings...m...pees." I said a bit louder.

"Wha-?"

"It brings me peace!" I almost shouted and Roland flinched. "It brings me peace ok? It somehow, on a completely strange level, reminds me of home." I closed my eyes and held out my hand. After a few seconds, I felt the book back in my hand.

**Instant. Intense. Weirdly familiar...The moment Luce looks at Daniel she knows she has never felt like this before.**

"Yeah. What the Hell is this?" I said, flipping it over and back. "First it mentions my name and now yours?" I point to Daniel. "Coincidence? No. I don't believe in coincidences. But I'm really hooked now and I wanna read it so..."

**Except she can't shake the feeling that she has. And with him - a boy she doesn't remember ever setting eyes on. Will her attempt to find out why enlighten her - or destroy her? **

**Dangerously exciting and darkly romantic, Fallen is a thrilling story about forbidden love.**

"Well this is weird." Molly stated.

"Yeah. Tell me about it." Annabelle added.

"It's too close to the truth for it to just be a story. I think an Oracle must have written it." Cam said.

"If an Oracle written it then this book is about the future." Daniel said, hope glinting his eyes.

"I'm sorry, but am I missing something? Oracles? Aren't they people who can see the past present an future?" Penn says.

"Yeah they are. But they are angels with foreseer abilities. Their visions always come true unless they tell the person and that person wishes to change what happens. But apart from that, yeah, they are people who can see the past present and future and having one on your side would give you a great advantage point." I said automatically and everyone stared at me with mouths open. "What? I had to do a research task on angels for my R.E assessment. But that doesn't matter right now. I can already tell that the book is about angels and that the two main characters - me and Daniel - are either both angels or one of us is at least. It's totally cliché."

"Well let's just read it and find out what happens ok?" Gabbe's voice carried out over the table, silencing everyone. "Who want to read the prologue?"

After a few seconds of silence, Annabelle spoke up. "I will."

I handed the book over to Annabelle and she began.

.


	2. Chapter 2

**I started this a while ago, I know. But I've gotten a few reviews and as it turned out, you people were crazy for this story. So I decided that I'd continue it. But I'd probably be uploading this every few weeks because I'm currently writing another Fallen fanfic and an Iron Fey one so go and check them out. Plus I have to copy out all of the book with the book in front of me so if any of you know an easier way, let me know in the comments. By the way, this is from Annabelle's POV. Enjoy :) xx**

**But paradise has been locked and bolted...we must make a journey around the world and see if a back door has perhaps been left open.**

The loophole. Annabelle smiled at herself and then looked over to Daniel. He met her gaze and nodded. He had seemed more at ease now Lucinda had shown up. 17 years of the stone hard Daniel with cold features and grey eyes. Now his eyes glowed the most vibrant violet and the tension had left his body completely. She had seen the way they had both blushed when they realised they had been staring at each other and she thought that it was cute.

**In The Beginning. Helston, England. September 1854.**

Annabelle gulped and looked at the other fallen angels around the table. They all knew what had happened that year - the same thing that had happened every 17 years. Lucinda died. Everyone had a look of sympathy on their faces apart from Penn and Luce because they didn't know what had happened.

**Around midnight, her eyes at last took shape. The look in them was feline, half determined and half tentative - all trouble. Yes, they were just right, those eyes. Rising up to her fine elegant brow, inches from the dark cascade of her hair.**

Annabelle knew what was going on - Daniel was drawing Luce like he did everyday. Daniel had a little bit of heat coming on his cheek.

"So obvious." Cam coughed and Daniel glared at him.

"What's so obvious?" Luce sincerely asked. People say that ignorance is bliss but Luce's ignorance is what got her killed.

"It nothing," Arriane spoke up, "right Cam?"

He looked over at Luce. "Right."

**He held the paper at arm's length to asses his progress. It was hard, working without her in front of him, but then, he could never sketch in her presence.**

Otherwise it could cause her to combust, Annabelle thought. And she was pretty sure all the other angels were thinking that as well.

**Since he had arrived from London - no, since he had first seen her - he'd had to be careful always to keep her at a distance. Every day now she approached him, and every day was more difficult than the one before. It was why he was leaving in the morning - for India, for the Americas, he didn't know or care. Wherever he ended up, it would be easier than being here.**

"I don't get it." Luce started, talking to no one in particular. "It's obvious that he likes this 'she' so why couldn't he just go and tell her?"

"It's not that easy." Daniel replied. "Saying the wrong thing could end it." He slapped a hand over his mouth. He shouldn't have said that much. What if it set this Lucinda off?

"End the relationship?" She innocently asked.

"Something like that." Arriane added.

**He leaned over the drawing again, sighing as he used his thumb to perfect the smudged charcoal pout of her full bottom lip. The lifeless paper, cruel imposter, was the only way to take her with him.**

Arriane leaned over to Daniel and whispered something in is ear that caused him to blush even more.

"Shut up Ari." He mumbled.

**Then, straightening up in the leather library chair, he felt it. That brush of warmth on the back of his neck. Her.**

**Her mere proximity gave him the most peculiar sensation, like the kind of heat sent out when a log shatters to ash in a fire. He knew without turning around: She was there. He covered her likeness on the bound papers in his lap, but he could not escape her.**

Daniel closed his eyes and breathed in slowly. He had already lived through this once. It was cruel to make him relive it again.

"S'all right Daniel." Gabbe soothed, patting Daniel's back lightly like you would an upset child.

"It's not fair." He mumbled, so quietly that Annabelle almost missed it.

"Life's not fair." Luce said, causing everyone to turn to her in disbelief. How could she have heard that? "That's why I've always said make each moment memorable because you don't know when you're going to die."

Annabelle couldn't hear this anymore and continued.

**His eyes fell on the ivory-upholstered settee across the parlor, where only hours earlier she'd turned up unexpectedly, later than the rest of her party, in a rose silk gown, to applaud the eldest daughter of their host after a fine turn at the harpsichord. He glanced across the room, out the window to the veranda, where the day before she'd crept up on him, a fistful of wild white peonies in her hand. She still thought the pull she felt toward him was innocent, that their frequent rendezvous in the gazebo were merely … happy coincidences. To be so naïve! He would never tell her otherwise—the secret was his to bear.**

"I've had enough." Daniel started and got up from his seat.

"Hey! That's not fair! Let me up as well." Luce demanded, trying to get back up again. When she realised it wasn't working, she crossed her arms and huffed.

"Sit." Arriane ordered.

"He's not a puppy Arriane." Molly added. "Would you like to brush his hair and take him for a walk as well?"

"Mol," Cam warned, "not here." But no one seemed to pay attention.

Arriane slowly turned her head in Molly's direction. "You'd just love that won't you? I bet you always give them collars, slut."

"What did you just say to me?" Molly's voice threatened.

"Hey, hey! Ladies. Let's not start this n-" Rolland attempted.

"You heard me. Loud and clear. Or would you like me to repeat myself?" Arriane replied.

Molly stood up and pushed her chair back. "Would you like to say that to my face, bitch?"

"Oh, you did not just go there." Arriane rolled up the sleeves to her black hoodie.

"You wonna fight? Right here, right now."

Molly and Arriane started off toward each other.

"I'm betting on Molly." Cam said, as Daniel came back with a glass of water.

"I'm on Ari. That girl has got skills." Rolland added.

"What's going on?" Daniel asked.

Molly took a swing at Arriane but she dodged it and kneed Molly in the stomach.

"Hey!" Luce said, trying to stop it. But they ignored her. Molly recovered and punched Arriane in the left cheek, making her head snap right. "Stop it!" She sounded hysteric. Arriane lunged and grabbed Molly by the neck. Molly started choking and Luce started to hyperventilate. And then she screamed. It was so powerful that it stopped everyone in their tracks to cover their ears, whilst looking at her. So high pitched that it broke Daniels glass of water into a million pieces, spilling the water onto the shiney white surface. The noise suddenly stopped and Luce looked at Arriane and Molly. "Would you two stop acting like children and grow up!" She stressed, looking like a mother who was telling their children off, who were 17, for fighting for the hundredth time that day. She looked at Annabelle. "Please, continue."

**He stood and turned, the sketches left behind on the leather chair. And there she was, pressed against the ruby velvet curtain in her plain white dressing gown. Her black hair had fallen from its braid. The look on her face was the same as the one he'd sketched so many times. There was the fire, rising in her cheeks. Was she angry? Embarrassed? He longed to know, but could not allow himself to ask.**

Penn, who had been rather quiet the entire time, spoke. "It's so tragic. To be in love, yet never have it. I feel empathy for this character, yet don't. He can't get to be with his true love but it's his choice. He's choosing to distance himself. Doesn't he see it? The closer they are, the stronger their bond. The stronger their bond, the more powerful the love. When their love gets so powerful it can truly overcome everything, then they can be together."

Annabelle was stunned. Nobody could speak, as if registering what Penn said. Could this have been what could solve the curse? Could this have been the missing piece.

"Sorry. I took poetry class. I get a bit prophetic sometimes when I get really passionate about something. I'll just shut up now." She continued.

"No, no." Luce insisted. "Penn that was beautiful. I think I might cry."

"Don't cry, honey. That'll set everybody off." Gabbe said and Annabelle agreed. It was so heart wrenching when Luce cried that everyone, even Molly, cried.

**"What are you doing here?" He could hear the snarl in his voice, and regretted its sharpness, knowing she would never understand.**

Annabelle was shocked. She never knew Daniel would been mean to Luce - she was his life.

**"I—I couldn't sleep," she stammered, moving toward the fire and his chair. "I saw the light in your room and then"—she paused, looking down at her hands—"your trunk outside the door. Are you going somewhere?"**

Oh yeah. She remembered this now.

**"I was going to tell you—" He broke off. He shouldn't lie. He had never intended to let her know his plans. Telling her would only make things worse. Already, he had let things go too far, hoping this time would be different.**

But it wasn't. And never would be. 'False hope' as Daniel had called it.

**She drew nearer, and her eyes fell on his sketchbook. "You were drawing me?"**

Oh no Daniel, Annabelle thought, cover it up! Cover it up! If Luce saw the drawings, it could set her off.

**Her startled tone reminded him how great the gap was in their understanding. Even after all the time they'd spent together these past few weeks, she had not yet begun to glimpse the truth that lay behind their attraction.**

"Ooooooh. I like where this is going. It's all secretive. Once I know someone is telling a secret, I can't let it go. This is going to be interesting." Penn started.

If only she knew the ending, Annabelle thought.

**This was good—or at least, it was for the better. For the past several days, since he'd made the choice to leave, he'd been struggling to pull away from her. The effort took so much out of him that, as soon as he was alone, he had to give in to his pent-up desire to draw her. He had filled up his book with pages of her arched neck, her marble collarbone, the black abyss of her hair.**

"That's so sweet." Luce said, looking down, smiling. Looks like someone's a hopeless romantic. Then again, Annabelle and all the angels already knew that.

**Now, he looked back at the sketch, not ashamed at being caught drawing her, but worse. A cold chill spread through him as he realized that her discovery—the exposure of his feelings—would destroy her. He should have been more careful. It always began like this.**

"That's a bit dramatic." Cam started. "It 'would destroy her'. I mean, I get what this is implying," he coughed 'obviously', "but no need to make it sound like it was the end of the world."

But to Daniel, losing Luce was the end of the world.

**"Warm milk with a spoonful of treacle," he murmured, his back still to her. Then he added sadly, "It helps you sleep."**

**"How did you know? Why, that's exactly what my mother used to—"**

**"I know," he said, turning to face her. The astonishment in her voice did not surprise him, yet he could not explain to her how he knew, or tell her how many times he had administered this very drink to her in the past when the shadows came, how he had held her until she fell asleep.**

Well that doesn't make him sound like a creepy stalker guy.

**He felt her touch as though it were burning through his shirt, her hand laid gently on his shoulder, causing him to gasp. They had not yet touched in this life, and the first contact always left him breathless.**

This was some personal shit going on here! This was Daniel and Luce private time. Annabelle felt a bit uncomfortable reading this now and looked over at Daniel to find him deeply blushing. Well, maybe she could just read a bit more...

**"Answer me," she whispered. "Are you leaving?"**

**"Yes."**

**"Then take me with you," she blurted out. Right on cue, he watched her suck in her breath, wishing to take back her plea. He could see the progression of her emotions settle in the crease between her eyes: She would feel impetuous, then bewildered, then ashamed by her own forwardness. She always did this, and too many times before, he had made the mistake of comforting her at this exact moment.**

"No," Daniel said covering his ears and facing down.

"Dramatic, dramatic." Cam taunted, smirking.

Daniel glared at Cam. "Do you know what it feels like to go through it over and over again? You went through it once. Once! She broke your heart but that was ages ago and I mean ages and ages and ages ago. Once. Mines been broken over and aver again and it hurts. It hurts so bad. And you know what? I deal with it. So don't call me dramatic when you have no idea what I've been through." Daniel snapped.

Cam stayed quiet.

**"No," he whispered, remembering…always remembering…"I sail tomorrow. If you care for me at all, you won't say another word."**

**"If I care for you," she repeated, almost as if she were speaking to herself. "I-I love-"**

**"Don't."**

They all knew what came next and looked really sympathetically at Daniel.

**"I have to say it. I—I love you, I'm quite sure, and if you leave—"**

**"If I leave, I save your life." He spoke slowly, trying to reach a part of her that might remember. Was it there at all, buried somewhere? "Some things are more important than love. You won't understand, but you have to trust me."**

Oh no. Don't tell Luce she doesn't understand. Touchy subject.

**Her eyes drilled into him. She stepped back and crossed her arms over her chest. This was his fault, too—he always brought out her contemptuous side when he spoke down to her.**

**"You mean to say there are things more important than this?" she challenged, taking his hands and drawing them to her heart.**

He was doomed. She pulled this trick every time and he always fell for it.

**Oh, to be her and not know what was coming! Or at least to be stronger than he was and be able to stop her. If he didn't stop her, she would never learn, and the past would only repeat itself, torturing them both again and again.**

This was torture enough. But now they had to read about it?

**The familiar warmth of her skin under his hands made him tilt his head back and moan. He was trying to ignore how close she was, how well he knew the feel of her lips on his, how bitter he felt that all of this had to end. But her fingers traced his so lightly. He could feel her heart racing through her thin cotton gown.**

"I really don't think I should read anymore," Annabelle said flipping to the next page and scanning it, "yep. It gets detailed."

Daniel blushed even more. "Let me see."

Annabelle handed the book over to him and watched as his face turned from light pink to deep red. He handed it back and gave a nod of his head to continue. Luce and Penn didn't know that this was Luce and Daniel so he couldn't really be embarrassed by it.

**She was right. There was nothing more than this. There never was. He was about to give in and take her in his arms when he caught the look in her eyes. As if she'd seen a ghost.**

And here it comes.

**She was the one to pull away, a hand to her forehead.**

**"I'm having the strangest sensation," she whispered.**

**No—was it already too late?**

**Her eyes narrowed into the shape in his sketch and she came back to him, her hands on his chest, her lips parted expectantly. "Tell me I'm mad, but I swear I've been right here before…"**

There it is! The line that sets Luce off.

**So it was too late. He looked up, shivering, and could feel the dark descending. He took one last chance to seize her, to hold her as tightly as he'd been yearning to for weeks.**

"Get ready guys." Annabelle warned.

**As soon as her lips melted into his, both of them were powerless. The honeysuckle taste of her mouth made him dizzy. The closer she pressed against him, the more his stomach churned with the thrill and the agony of it all. Her tongue traced his, and the fire between them burned brighter, hotter, more powerful with every new touch, every new exploration. Yet none of it was new.**

Daniel didn't even look like Daniel anymore, he was so red. In fact, everyone, including Luce and Penn, were blushing at the description.

"Well...that was...graphic." Luce commented, heating up even more as if deep down, she knew it was her.

"Hey, don't say I didn't warn you guys." Annabelle said, reading the final page.

**The room quaked. An aura around them started to glow.**

"Seriously?" Daniel asked.

"Yeah, it does get pretty bright." Gabbe added, speaking to Daniel in a way that suggest she can't believe he's never noticed this before after 7,000 years.

**She noticed nothing, was aware of nothing, understood nothing besides their kiss.**

**He alone knew what was about to happen, what dark companions were prepared to fall on their reunion. Even though he was unable to alter the course of their lives yet again, he knew.**

Annabelle didn't really want to carry on reading but she knew she had to or none of them would ever be able to get over it.

**The shadows swirled directly overhead. So close, he might have touched them. So close, he wondered whether she could hear what they were whispering. He watched as the cloud passed over her face. For a moment he saw a spark of recognition growing in her eyes.**

**Then there was nothing, nothing at all.**

"That's the end of the prologue." Annabelle said after a few seconds of silence.

"I want to read chapter 1." Luce offered.

Nobody objected and Luce turned the page to chapter 1.

**Let me know who you want to read chapter 2 in the reviews and I'll see you soon. Bye...**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey guys! Sorry this has taken months to upload but it's finally here. I will be starting a new fanfiction very soon called 'Jades Chance' so keep an eye out for it. For those of you who have read my other fanfiction on Fallen, the next chapter is a work in progress and shouldn't take too long to upload. I just don't want you to think I'm abandoning them. Hope you enjoy and please review!**

**Chapter 1 Perfect Strangers**

I looked at my name. That was the first word of chapter one. Luce. I already had shivers and didn't really want to read my future. Sure, I'd love to see if I made any friends or got a boyfriend or something. But to have my whole life in a book? That was quite scary.

**Luce barged into the fluorescent-lit lobby of the Sword &amp; Cross School ten minutes later than she should have. A barrel-chested attendant with ruddy cheeks and a clipboard clamped under an iron bicep was already giving orders—which meant Luce was already behind.**

"Oh, I see you've met Randy." Arriane said to me with a laugh behind her words. Of course she knew this person. After all, they all did go to Sword and Cross.

"I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing." I said tentatively.

"We'll see..."

**"So remember, it's meds, beds, and reds," the attendant barked at a cluster of three other students all standing with their backs to Luce. "Remember the basics and no one gets hurt." Luce hurried to slip in behind the group. She was still trying to figure out whether she'd filled out the giant stack of paperwork correctly, whether this shaven-headed guide standing before them was a man or a woman, whether there was anyone to help her with this enormous duffel bag, whether her parents were going to get rid of her beloved Plymouth Fury the minute they arrived home from dropping her off here. They'd been threatening to sell the car all summer, and now they had a reason even Luce couldn't argue with: No one was allowed to have a car at Luce's new school. Her new reform school, to be precise.**

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold up. My parents are selling my car? My Plymouth Fury? Oh hell no! Over my dead body they will. And what did I do to get into a reform school? Kill someone?" I was hysterical to say the least. And I had every right to. My parents were selling my car, I had an attendant with an unknown identity and I was in a reform school. What about my 4.0 transcript?

**She was still getting used to the term.**

**"Could you, uh, could you repeat that?" she asked the attendant. "What was it, meds—?"**

**"Well, look what the storm blew in," the attendant said loudly, then continued, enunciating slowly: "Meds. If you're one of the medicated students, this is where you go to keep yourself doped up, sane, breathing, whatever." Woman, Luce decided, studying the attendant. No man would be catty enough to say all that in such a saccharine tone of voice.**

A few people around the table started laughing at my remark.

**"Got it." Luce felt her stomach heave. "Meds."**

**She'd been off meds for years now. After the accident this past summer, Dr. Sanford, her specialist in Hopkinton—and the reason her parents had sent her to boarding school all the way in New Hampshire—had wanted to consider medicating her again. Though she'd finally convinced him of her quasi-stability, it had taken an extra month of analysis on her part just to stay off those awful antipsychotics.**

"Oh God, not my medication again! I'd finally convinced him I was sane enough to be left alone in a room." I said to myself.

"What'd'ya do to get on medication?" Roland, I think, said.

"Nothing, it doesn't matter."

**Which was why she was enrolling in her senior year at Sword &amp; Cross a full month after the academic year had begun. Being a new student was bad enough, and Luce had been really nervous about having to jump into classes where everyone else was already settled. But from the looks of this tour, she wasn't the only new kid arriving today.**

**She sneaked a peek at the three other students standing in a half circle around her. At her last school, Dover Prep, the campus tour on the first day was where she'd met her best friend, Callie. On a campus where all the other students had practically been weaned together, it would have been enough that Luce and Callie were the only non-legacy kids. But it didn't take long for the two girls to realise they also had the exact same obsession with the exact same old movies—especially where Albert Finney was concerned. After their discovery freshman year while watching Two for the Road that neither one of them could make a bag of popcorn without setting off the fire alarm, Callie and Luce hadn't left each other's sides. Until … until they'd had to.**

"Albert Finney? Good choice, good choice." Cam said. "Ey Daniel?"

"Yeah, great choice." He said under his breath. Had I missed out on something?

**At Luce's sides today were two boys and a girl. The girl seemed easy enough to figure out, blond and Neutrogena-commercial pretty, with pastel pink manicured nails that matched her plastic binder.**

"Oooooooh, Gabbe." Arriane said and winked at Gabbe.

**"I'm Gabbe," she drawled, flashing Luce a big smile that disappeared as quickly as it had surfaced, before Luce could even offer her own name. The girl's waning interest reminded her more of a southern version of the girls at Dover than someone she'd expect at Sword &amp; Cross. Luce couldn't decide whether this was comforting or not, any more than she could imagine what a girl who looked like this would be doing at reform school.**

"That would be a long story, honey, and not one I'd like to indulge in." Gabbe said sweetly but casted Cam a long, hard glance.

**To Luce's right was a guy with short brown hair, brown eyes, and a smattering of freckles across his nose. But the way he wouldn't even meet her eyes, just kept picking at a hangnail on his thumb, gave Luce the impression that, like her, he was probably still stunned and embarrassed to find himself here.**

"That's Todd. He was supposed to start before the Summer holidays but we still had to wait for Casey and Harvey to graduate before he came. Not enough rooms." Penn said.

"How do you know this stuff?" Annabelle said.

"Let's just say I'm the only trusted student in the school and might just have a copy of the file room keys."

**The guy to her left, on the other hand, fit Luce's image of this place a little bit too perfectly. He was tall and thin, with a DJ bag slung over his shoulder, shaggy black hair, and large, deep-set green eyes. His lips were full and a natural rose color most girls would kill for. At the back of his neck, a black tattoo in the shape of a sunburst seemed almost to glow on his light skin, rising up from the edge of his black T-shirt.**

Cam coughed and looked down, smirking.

**Unlike the other two, when this guy turned to meet her gaze, he held it and didn't let go. His mouth was set in a straight line, but his eyes were warm and alive. He gazed at her, standing as still as a sculpture, which made Luce feel rooted to her spot, too. She sucked in her breath. Those eyes were intense, and alluring, and, well, a little bit disarming.**

"I tend to have that effect on people." Cam said and Daniel sent him a stern glance.

"Hey, apparently my eyes are intense and alluring." He said and pointed to me. "She said it."

"Hey, apparently," I started like Cam had, "I said your eyes were disarming. That means trouble. And quite frankly, you reek of it." I said, immediately coming to Daniel defence. I didn't know why I said it but I had a sudden urge to bang Cams head off the table a few times for getting Daniel riled up.

**With some loud throat-clearing noises, the attendant interrupted the boy's trancelike stare. Luce blushed and pretended to be very busy scratching her head.**

"I never blush." I said, blushing.

"Liar, liar, pants on f..." Arriane started but trailed off when she got warning glance from everyone. "Ok, never mind."

**"Those of you who've learned the ropes are free to go after you dump your hazards." The attendant gestured at a large cardboard box under a sign that said in big black letters PROHIBITED MATERIALS. "And when I say free, Todd"—she clamped a hand down on the freckled kid's shoulder, making him jump—"I mean gymnasium-bound to meet your preassigned student guides. You"—she pointed at Luce—"dump your hazards and stay with me."**

**The four of them shuffled toward the box and Luce watched, baffled, as the other students began to empty their pockets. The girl pulled out a three-inch pink Swiss Army knife. The green-eyed guy reluctantly dumped a can of spray paint and a box cutter. Even the hapless Todd let loose several books of matches and a small container of lighter fluid. Luce felt almost stupid that she wasn't concealing a hazard of her own—but when she saw the other kids reach into their pockets and chuck their cell phones into the box, she gulped.**

"No phones? Are you kidding me?" I reached into my back pocket and sure enough, my phone was there. I checked the time but it hadn't moved since I checked it this morning. Stupid phone, always crashing.

"Spoken like a true newbie." Arriane said.

"Don't worry, you get one phone call a week." Gabbe said.

"One phone call? A week?" I started hyperventilating.

"Chill out Luce. I'd be able to get it back for you." Roland said.

**Leaning forward to read the PROHIBITED MATERIALS sign a little more closely, she saw that cell phones, pagers, and all two-way radio devices were strictly forbidden. It was bad enough that she couldn't have her car! Luce clamped a sweaty hand around the cell phone in her pocket, her only connection to the outside world. When the attendant saw the look on her face, Luce received a few quick slaps on the cheek. "Don't swoon on me, kid, they don't pay me enough to resuscitate. Besides, you get one phone call once a week in the main lobby."**

**One phone call … once a week? But—**

**She looked down at her phone one last time and saw that she'd received two new text messages. It didn't seem possible that these would be her two last text messages. The first one was from Callie.**

**Call immediately! Will be waiting by the phone all nite so be ready to dish. And remember the mantra I assigned you. You'll survive! BTW, for what it's worth, I think everyone's totally forgotten about …**

**In typical Callie fashion, she'd gone on so long that Luce's crap cell phone cut the message off four lines in. In a way, Luce was almost relieved. She didn't want to read about how everyone from her old school had already forgotten what had happened to her, what she'd done to land herself in this place.**

I grunted. "The suspension is killing me! Just tell me what I did already!" I shouted at the book, shaking it. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to get back on medication right now.

**She sighed and scrolled down to her second message. It was from her mom, who'd only just gotten the hang of texting a few weeks ago, and who surely had not known about this one-call-once-a-week thing or she would never have abandoned her daughter here. Right?**

**Kiddo, we are always thinking of you. Be good and try to eat enough protein. We'll talk when we can. Love, M&amp;D**

**With a sigh, Luce realised her parents must have known. How else to explain their drawn faces when she'd waved goodbye at the school gates this morning, duffel bag in hand? At breakfast, she'd tried to joke about finally losing that appalling New England accent she'd picked up at Dover, but her parents hadn't even cracked a smile. She'd thought they were still mad at her. They never did the whole raising-their-voice thing, which meant that when Luce really messed up, they just gave her the old silent treatment. Now she understood this morning's strange demeanour: Her parents were already mourning the loss of contact with their only daughter.**

**"We're still waiting on one person," the attendant sang. "I wonder who it is." Luce's attention snapped back to the Hazard Box, which was now brimming with contraband she didn't even recognise. She could feel the dark-haired boy's green eyes staring at her. She looked up and noticed that everyone was staring. Her turn. She closed her eyes and slowly opened her fingers, letting her phone slip from her grasp and land with a sad thunk on top of the heap. The sound of being all alone.**

"Aww Luce, you'll never be alone." Cam said. "I'll be right there."

"That's enough, Cam." Daniel said, his voice hard and stern.

Cam threw his hands in the air. "Joking, joking."

**Todd and the fembot Gabbe headed for the door without so much as a look in Luce's direction, but the third boy turned to the attendant.**

"I am not a fembot!" Gabbe said defensively.

"Fembot, I like it. From now on, I'm calling you Fembot Gabbe." Molly said with a sneer.

"Do that Molly, and I'll break every bone in your body." Gabbe's voice carried over the table, silencing the mean girl.

**"I can fill her in," he said, nodding at Luce.**

**"Not part of our deal," the attendant replied automatically, as if she'd been expecting this dialogue. "You're a new student again—that means new-student restrictions. Back to square one. You don't like it, you should have thought twice before breaking parole."**

**The boy stood motionless, expressionless, as the attendant tugged Luce—who'd stiffened at the word "parole"—toward the end of a yellowed hall.**

**"Moving on," she said, as if nothing had just happened. "Beds." She pointed out the west-facing window to a distant cinder-block building. Luce could see Gabbe and Todd shuffling slowly toward them, with the third boy walking slowly, as if catching up to them were the last thing on his list of things to do.**

"Believe me, it probably was." Cam said.

"So you've already been there." I said. "At Sword and Cross I mean."

"Yep. First time, I was in a band." He boasted.

"Really?" I said in a flat tone. "How interesting." His macho fell instantly and he looked disappointed. I felt a little bad for not letting him down easily but the triumphant look on Daniels face washed away any feeling I'd felt towards Cam.

**The dorm was formidable and square, a solid gray block of a building whose thick double doors gave away nothing about the possibility of life inside them. A large stone plaque stood planted in the middle of the dead lawn, and Luce remembered from the Web site the words PAULINE DORMITORY chiseled into it. It looked even uglier in the hazy morning sun than it had looked in the flat black-and-white photograph.**

**Even from this distance, Luce could see black mold covering the face of the dorm. All the windows were obstructed by rows of thick steel bars. She squinted. Was that barbed wire topping the fence around the building?**

**The attendant looked down at a chart, flipping through Luce's file. "Room sixty-three. Throw your bag in my office with the rest of them for now. You can unpack this afternoon."**

"That room used to belong to Mason. He murdered his little 14 year old brother, gutted his 19 year old sister and burnt his house to the ground. The he committed suicide in that room. It's supposedly haunted." Penn said.

"That's lovely." I replied feeling faint.

**Luce dragged her red duffel bag toward three other nondescript black trunks. Then she reached reflexively for her cell phone, where she usually keyed in things she needed to remember. But as her hand searched her empty pocket, she sighed and committed the room number to memory instead.**

**She still didn't see why she couldn't just stay with her parents; their house in Thunderbolt was less than a half hour from Sword &amp; Cross. It had felt so good to be back home in Savannah, where, as her mom always said, even the wind blew lazily. Georgia's softer, slower pace suited Luce way more than New England ever had.**

**But Sword &amp; Cross didn't feel like Savannah. It hardly felt like anywhere at all, except the lifeless, colourless place where the court had mandated she board. She'd overheard her dad on the phone with the headmaster the other day, nodding in his befuddled biology-professor way and saying, "Yes, yes, maybe it would be best for her to be supervised all the time. No, no, we wouldn't want to interfere with your system."**

"God dad, overprotective much," I mumbled, "give a girl some space."

**Clearly her father had not seen the conditions of his only daughter's supervision. This place looked like a maximum-security prison.**

**"And what about, what did you say—the reds?" Luce asked the attendant, ready to be released from the tour.**

**"Reds," the attendant said, pointing toward a small wired device hanging from the ceiling: a lens with a flashing red light. Luce hadn't seen it before, but as soon as the attendant pointed the first one out, she realized they were everywhere.**

**"Cameras?"**

**"Very good," the attendant said, voice dripping condescension. "We make them obvious in order to remind you. All the time, everywhere, we're watching you. So don't screw up—that is, if you can help yourself."**

**Every time someone talked to Luce like she was a total psychopath, she came that much closer to believing it was true.**

"I-I'm not a psychopath. I've just got and average of 4.0 for my transcript. I am not a psychopath." I mumbled under my breath. But after seeing the unexplained shadows for 12 years, it was closer than imaginable.

**All summer, the memories had haunted her, in her dreams and in the rare moments her parents left her alone. Something had happened in that cabin, and everyone (including Luce) was dying to know exactly what. The police, the judge, the social worker had all tried to pry the truth out of her, but she was as clueless about it all as they were. She and Trevor had been joking around the whole evening, chasing each other down to the row of cabins on the lake, away from the rest of the party. She'd tried to explain that it had been one of the best nights of her life, until it turned into the worst.**

"Trevor?" I asked.

"Who's Trevor?" Daniel asked, worry lining his voice.

"He's like the most popular guy at my school. What would I be doing with him? I haven't spoken to him since my first day I went to that stupid school." I thought hard. "And why would I be invited a party? Especially if Trevor was there?"

**She'd spent so much time replaying that night in her head, hearing Trevor's laugh, feeling his hands close around her waist, and trying to reconcile her gut instinct that she really was innocent.**

"Ok, this sounds too close for comfort." I said to myself. "I don't feel that way about Trevor. Sure, I had a crush on him for a year or two but..."

**But now, every rule and regulation at Sword &amp; Cross seemed to work against that notion, seemed to suggest that she was, in fact, dangerous and needed to be controlled.**

**Luce felt a firm hand on her shoulder.**

**"Look," the attendant said. "If it makes you feel any better, you're far from the worst case here."**

**It was the first humane gesture the attendant had made toward Luce, and she believed that it was intended to make her feel better. But. She'd been sent here because of the suspicious death of the guy she'd been crazy about, and still she was "far from the worst case here"? Luce wondered what else exactly they were dealing with at Sword &amp; Cross.**

"Suspicious death? I was with Trevor and now he's dead?" My hand flew to my mouth. "I did it. I killed him. My insanity just pushed me off the edge. Well done me. Off course it could only happen to the girl who sees things. Of course it would happen to me."

**"Okay, orientation's over," the attendant said. "You're on your own now. Here's a map if you need to find anything else." She gave Luce a photocopy of a crude hand-drawn map, then glanced at her watch. "You've got an hour before your first class, but my soaps come on in five, so"—she waved her hand at Luce—"make yourself scarce. And don't forget," she said, pointing up at the cameras one last time. "The reds are watching you."**

**Before Luce could reply, a skinny, dark-haired girl appeared in front of her, wagging her long fingers in Luce's face.**

"The reds are watching youuuuuuu." Arriane said and laughed to herself.

**"Ooooooh," the girl taunted in a ghost-story-telling voice, dancing around Luce in a circle. "The reds are watching youuuu."**

Arriane's mouth flew open. "No way. Did you guys see that? I said what I said in the book before I said it!"

**"Get out of here, Arriane, before I have you lobotomized," the attendant said, though it was clear from her first brief but genuine smile that she had some coarse affection for the crazy girl.**

**It was also clear that Arriane did not reciprocate the love. She mimed a jerking-off motion at the attendant, then stared at Luce, daring her to be offended.**

**"And just for that," the attendant said, jotting a furious note in her book, "you've earned yourself the task of showing Little Miss Sunshine around today."**

"Little Miss Sunshine? So now I'm being referred to as a Mr Men character. Great any more patronising to do, Randy?"

**She pointed at Luce, who looked anything but sunny in her black jeans, black boots, and black top. Under the "Dress Code" section, the Sword &amp; Cross Web site had cheerily maintained that as long as the students were on good behavior, they were free to dress as they pleased, with just two small stipulations: style must be modest and color must be black. Some freedom.**

**The too-big mock turtleneck Luce's mom had forced on her this morning did nothing for her curves, and even her best feature was gone: Her thick black hair, which used to hang down to her waist, had been almost completely shorn off.**

My hands flew to my hair. "No. Not the hair. Anything but the hair!" I cried. I out my head on the table. "My day just got from weird to the worse day ever."

**The cabin fire had left her scalp singed and her hairline patchy, so after the long, silent ride home from Dover, Mom had planted Luce in the bathtub, brought out Dad's electric razor, and wordlessly shaved her head. Over the summer, her hair had grown out a little, just enough so that her once-enviable waves now hovered in awkward twists just below her ears.**

**Arriane sized her up, tapping one finger against her pale lips. "Perfect," she said, stepping forward to loop her arm through Luce's. "I was just thinking I could really use a new slave."**

"A slave? Arriane!" Gabbe said in shock.

"Hey! Back off. At least I'm trying to get to know her. You just smiled at her and walked away."

**The door to the lobby swung open and in walked the tall kid with green eyes. He shook his head and said to Luce, "This place isn't afraid to do a strip search. So if you're packing any other hazards"—he raised an eyebrow and dumped a handful of unrecognizables in the box—"save yourself the trouble."**

**Behind Luce, Arriane laughed under her breath. The boy's head shot up, and when his eyes registered Arriane, he opened his mouth, then closed it, like he was unsure how to proceed.**

**"Arriane," he said evenly.**

**"Cam," she returned.**

**"You know him?" Luce whispered, wondering whether there were the same kinds of cliques in reform schools as there were in prep schools like Dover.**

"Not cliques my dear Luce. But let's just say me and Cam go way back." Ari said.

**"Don't remind me," Arriane said, dragging Luce out the door into the gray and swampy morning.**

**The back of the main building let out onto a chipped sidewalk bordering a messy field. The grass was so overgrown, it looked more like a vacant lot than a school commons, but a faded scoreboard and a small stack of wooden bleachers argued otherwise.**

**Beyond the commons lay four severe-looking buildings: the cinder-block dormitory on the far left, a huge old ugly church on the far right, and two other expansive structures in between that Luce imagined were the classrooms.**

**This was it. Her whole world was reduced to the sorry sight before her eyes.**

"You know, you sound really depressed in everything you think. You need to let loose a bit." Roland said.

"I'm sorry but I just found out that my car got sold, I was in a reform school, my attendants gender is a mystery, the guy I've had a crush on is dead, not to add the fact that I killed him, my hair has been burnt to a crisp, my room housed a serial killer who committed suicide in there, I get one phone call a week, I'm under constant watch by cameras, the school is more like a prison, I'm stuck in a literal hell hole and my new friend is acting like more of a psychopath than me so I think I have the right to be depressed at that moment in time."

**Arriane immediately veered right off the path and led Luce to the field, sitting her down on top of one of the waterlogged wooden bleachers.**

**The corresponding setup at Dover had screamed Ivy League jock-in-training, so Luce had always avoided hanging out there. But this empty field, with its rusted, warped goals, told a very different story. One that wasn't as easy for Luce to figure out. Three turkey vultures swooped overhead, and a dismal wind whipped through the bare branches of the oak trees. Luce ducked her chin down into her mock turtleneck.**

**"Soooo," Arriane said. "Now you've met Randy."**

**"I thought his name was Cam."**

**"We're not talking about him," Arriane said quickly. "I mean she-man in there." Arriane jerked her head toward the office where they'd left the attendant in front of the TV. "Whaddya think—dude or chick?"**

**"Uh, chick?" Luce said tentatively. "Is this a test?"**

**Arriane cracked a smile. "The first of many. And you passed. At least, I think you passed. The gender of most of the faculty here is an ongoing, schoolwide debate. Don't worry, you'll get into it."**

**Luce thought Arriane was making a joke—in which case, cool. But this was all such a huge change from Dover. At her old school, the green-tie-wearing, pomaded future senators had practically oozed through the halls in the genteel hush that money seemed to lay over everything.**

**More often than not, the other Dover kids gave Luce a don't-smudge-the-white-walls-with-your-fingerprints side ways glance. She tried to imagine Arriane there: lazing on the bleachers, making a loud, crude joke in her peppery voice. Luce tried to imagine what Callie might think of Arriane. There'd been no one like her at Dover.**

"Yeah, come to think of it, you and Callie would get along fine." I said to Arriane.

"Well, one day I'd like to meet her." She replied.

**"Okay, spill it," Arriane ordered. Plopping down on the top bleacher and motioning for Luce to join her, she said, "What'd ya do to get in here?"**

**Arriane's tone was playful, but suddenly Luce had to sit down. It was ridiculous, but she'd half expected to get through her first day of school without the past creeping up and robbing her of her thin façade of calm. Of course people here were going to want to know.**

**She could feel the blood thrumming at her temples. It happened whenever she tried to think back—really think back—to that night. She'd never stop feeling guilty about what had happened to Trevor, but she also tried really hard not to get mired down in the shadows, which by now were the only things she could remember about the accident. Those dark, indefinable things that she could never tell anyone about.**

"Ok," I slammed the book shut, "I'm not reading anymore."

"Why? And what shadows?" Molly asked, leaning forward.

"N-no shadows. Nope. Nothing to do with shadows." I said.

She sighed. "Well just carry on reading." I shook my head. "What have you got to hide?"

"I'm sorry but right now I don't need another excuse for you all to think I'm insane."

I took a deep breath and began again.

**Scratch that—she'd started to tell Trevor about the peculiar presence she'd felt that night, about the twisting shapes hanging over their heads, threatening to mar their perfect evening. Of course, by then it was already too late. Trevor was gone, his body burned beyond recognition, and Luce was...was she...guilty?**

My fingers trembled. Body burned beyond recognition. Why does that feel familiar?

**No one knew about the murky shapes she sometimes saw in the darkness. They'd always come to her. They'd come and gone for so long that Luce couldn't even remember the first time she'd seen them. But she could remember the first time she realized that the shadows didn't come for everyone—or actually, anyone but her. When she was seven, her family had been on vacation in Hilton Head and her parents had taken her on a boat trip. It was just about sunset when the shadows started rolling in over the water, and she'd turned to her father and said, "What do you do when they come, Dad? Why aren't you afraid of the monsters?"**

**There were no monsters, her parents assured her, but Luce's repeated insistence on the presence of something wobbly and dark had gotten her several appointments with the family eye doctor, and then glasses, and then appointments with the ear doctor after she made the mistake of describing the hoarse whooshing noise that the shadows sometimes made—and then therapy, and then more therapy, and finally the prescription for anti-psychotic medication.**

Once again I closed the book. Everyone sat there in silence.

"Well, I guess I haven't really taken any medication today because I'm being held hostage in a room with people who look so familiar and yet I can't place them. I'm reading a book on my life and the things I've never told anyone. You know what? In fact, I think I have had my medication today, but too much of them."

Still silence. "Someone tell me I'm insane."

"You want us to tell you you're insane? Well that's perfectly logical." Penn said.

"Look, Penn, I've had a particularly bad day today. My whole existence has pretty much been summed up in a book. At school, the kids laughed at me and called me a freak because yes, I see weird shadows everywhere and yes they are driving me up the wall and everyone thinks it's funny to pick on someone who believes in something other than good and bad. So sue me if I don't want to be told I'm perfectly normal because what I've seen isn't perfectly normal and confirming that helps me."

"Ok, you're insane. Now can we please continue?"

**But nothing ever made them go away.**

**By the time she was fourteen, Luce refused to take her meds. That was when they found Dr. Sanford, and the Dover School nearby. They flew to New Hampshire, and her father drove their rental car up a long, curved driveway to a hilltop mansion called Shady Hollows. They planted Luce in front of a man in a lab coat and asked her if she still saw her "visions." Her parents' palms were sweating as they gripped her hands, brows furrowed with the fear that there was something terribly wrong with their daughter.**

**No one came out and said that if she didn't tell Dr. Sanford what they all wanted her to say, she might be seeing a whole lot more of Shady Hollows. When she lied and acted normal, she was allowed to enroll at Dover, and only had to visit Dr. Sanford twice a month.**

**Luce had been permitted to stop taking the horrible pills as soon as she started pretending she didn't see the shadows anymore. But she still had no control over when they might appear. All she knew was that the mental catalog of places where they'd come for her in the past—dense forests, murky waters—became the places she avoided at all costs. All she knew was that when the shadows came, they were usually accompanied by a cold chill under her skin, a sickening feeling unlike anything else.**

Like now actually. I looked around but the room was white. Then they started seeping in from the corners and crawled along the ceiling until they swirled like a massive vortex above my head. I gripped the book hard and continued, ignoring them the best I could.

**Luce straddled one of the bleachers and gripped her temples between her thumbs and middle fingers. If she was going to make it through today, she had to push her past to the recesses of her mind. She couldn't stand probing the memory of that night by herself, so there was no way she could air all the gruesome details to some weird, maniacal stranger.**

"Maniacal stranger? I don't know if I'm offended or not." Arriane said.

**Instead of answering, she watched Arriane, who was lying back on the bleachers, sporting a pair of enormous black sunglasses that covered the better part of her face. It was hard to tell, but she must have been staring at Luce, too, because after a second, she shot up from the bleachers and grinned.**

**"Cut my hair like yours," she said.**

**"What?" Luce gasped. "Your hair is beautiful."**

**It was true: Arriane had the long, thick locks that Luce so desperately missed. Her loose black curls sparkled in the sunlight, giving off just a tinge of red. Luce tucked her hair behind her ears, even though it still wasn't long enough to do anything but flop back down in front of them.**

**"Beautiful schmootiful," Arriane said. "Yours is sexy, edgy. And I want it."**

"Arriane, you do realise that I have never before cut hair in my life?"

"It doesn't matter. It's just hair - It'll grow back."

**"Oh, um, okay," Luce said. Was that a compliment? She didn't know if she was supposed to be flattered or unnerved by the way Arriane assumed she could have whatever she wanted, even if what she wanted belonged to someone else. "Where are we going to get—"**

**"Ta-da!" Arriane reached into her bag and pulled out the pink Swiss Army knife Gabbe had tossed into the Hazard Box. "What?" she said, seeing Luce's reaction. "I always bring my sticky fingers on new-student drop-off days. The idea alone gets me through the dog days of Sword &amp; Cross internment...er...summer camp."**

**"You spent the whole summer...here?" Luce winced.**

**"Ha! Spoken like a true newbie. You're probably expecting a spring break." She tossed Luce the Swiss Army knife. "We don't get to leave this hellhole. Ever. Now cut."**

**"What about the reds?" Luce asked, glancing around with the knife in her hand. There were bound to be cameras somewhere out here.**

**Arriane shook her head. "I refuse to associate with pansies. Can you handle it or not?"**

**Luce nodded.**

**"And don't tell me you've never cut hair before." Arriane grabbed the Swiss Army knife back from Luce, pulled out the scissor tool, and handed it back. "Not another word until you tell me how fantastic I look."**

"Ok, on my part, it was a really stupid idea." Arriane said.

"You think?" I replied.

In the "salon" of her parents' bathtub, Luce's mother had tugged the remains of her long hair into a messy pony-tail before lopping the whole thing off. Luce was sure there had to be a more strategic method of cutting hair, but as a lifelong haircut avoider, the chopped-off pony was about all she knew. She gathered Arriane's hair in her hands, wrapped an elastic band from her wrist around it, held the small scissors firmly, and began to hack.

The ponytail fell to her feet and Arriane gasped and whipped around. She picked it up and held it to the sun. Luce's heart constricted at the sight. She still agonised over her own lost hair, and all the other losses it symbolised. But Arriane just let a thin smile spread across her lips. She ran her fingers through the ponytail once, then dropped it into her bag.

"Awesome," she said. "Keep going."

"Arriane," Luce whispered before she could stop herself. "Your neck. It's all—"

"Scarred?" Arriane finished. "You can say it."

I looked over at Arriane who had her hand on her neck and a sad look on her face.

**The skin on Arriane's neck, from the back of her left ear all the way down to her collarbone, was jagged and marbled and shiny. Luce's mind went to Trevor—to those awful pictures. Even her own parents wouldn't look at her after they saw them. She was having a hard time looking at Arriane now.**

**Arriane grabbed Luce's hand and pressed it to the skin. It was hot and cold at the same time. It was smooth and rough.**

**"I'm not afraid of it," Arriane said. "Are you?"**

**"No," Luce said, though she wished Arriane would take her hand away so Luce could take hers away, too. Her stomach churned as she wondered whether this was how Trevor's skin would have felt.**

**"Are you afraid of who you really are, Luce?"**

"What? Are you serious Ari? How could you be so careless?" Daniel asked her, an angry scowl on his face.

Arriane's hands flew to her mouth. "I'm sorry! I wasn't thinking. I'm so sorry."

"If you've ruined this time I swear I will -"

"Hey," I said softly and Daniel shut up, just like that, "it's ok. She just asked a question. Yes, I'm afraid. I'm afraid I actually am insane and that I'm going to be put into an insane asylum but you don't need to get worked up about it ok?" I was actually really surprised at how soft my voice sounded. It sounded as if I was coaxing a child to calm down after a massive temper tantrum, but nothing patronising.

Daniel released the air he was holding in and gave a brief smile at Ari. "Sorry."

Arriane smirked. "Dm," and she actually said Dee emm, (doesn't matter), "you were panicking. I get it. I'd be that was too."

**"No," Luce said again quickly. It must be so obvious that she was lying. She closed her eyes. All she wanted from Sword &amp; Cross was a fresh start, a place where people didn't look at her the way Arriane was looking at her right now. At the school's gates that morning, when her father had whispered the Price family motto in her ear—"Prices never crash"—it had felt possible, but already Luce felt so run down and exposed. She tugged her hand away. "So how'd it happen?" she asked, looking down.**

**"Remember how I didn't press you when you clammed up about what you did to get here?" Arriane asked, raising her eyebrows.**

**Luce nodded.**

**Arriane gestured to the scissors. "Touch it up in the back, okay? Make me look real pretty. Make me look like you."**

"Arriane, you already look like me." I said pointing to our almost identical hair and features. "You know what? I think we'd be about to pass it off as twins."

Arriane tapped a finger against her lips. "Hmm," she looked at me, as if assessing me, and then looked at herself with a smile. "Definitely."

**Even with the same exact cut, Arriane would still only look like a very undernourished version of Luce. While Luce attempted to even out the first haircut she'd ever given, Arriane delved into the complexities of life at Sword &amp; Cross.**

**"That cell block over there is Augustine. It's where we have our so-called Social events on Wednesday nights. And all of our classes," she said, pointing at a building the color of yellowed teeth, two buildings to the right of the dorm. It looked like it had been designed by the same sadist who'd done Pauline. It was dismally square, dismally fortresslike, fortified by the same barbed wire and barred windows. An unnatural-looking gray mist cloaked the walls like moss, making it impossible to see whether anyone was over there.**

**"Fair warning," Arriane continued. "You're going to hate the classes here. You wouldn't be human if you didn't."**

"I've actually always enjoyed school." I said, then looked down, suddenly embarrassed to be all nerdy in front of everyone.

"You nerd." Arriane said, smiling.

"Yep. I'm pretty good with languages as well." I said. I could speak a lot of languages but only a few fluently.

"Really? Let's test it." Cam said.

"Bring it on." I said back.

"How are you?" He said in Spanish.

"Fine thanks." I replied back, also in the same language. I decided that I would answer back in the language as well to show them that not only could I understand it, I could speak it as well.

"Really?" He said in French.

"Yes, I've just made lots of new friends."

"Even Molly?" German.

"Yes, even Molly, if it's not too hard to believe."

"Ok, let's shake it up a bit." He said in English.

He tested me on about 20 more languages and then raised his eyebrows. "I'm impressed."

"I actually didn't know the name of the country that half of those languages came from. I just automatically knew what they were."

"Interesting..." He said and shared looks with everyone.

"That was so totally awesome." Penn said next to me.

"Thanks." I said back and resumed.

**"Why? What's so bad about them?" Luce asked. Maybe Arriane just didn't like school in general. With her black nail polish, black eyeliner, and the black bag that only seemed big enough to hold her new Swiss Army knife, she didn't exactly look bookish.**

**"The classes here are soulless," Arriane said. "Worse, they'll strip you of your soul. Of the eighty kids in this place, I'd say we've only got about three remaining souls." She glanced up. "Unspoken for, anyway …"**

"There you go again Ari!" Daniel said, sounding exhausted.

**That didn't sound promising, but Luce was hung up on another part of Arriane's answer. "Wait, there are only eighty kids in this whole school?" The summer before she went to Dover, Luce had pored over the thick Prospective Students handbook, memorizing all the statistics. But everything she'd learned so far about Sword &amp; Cross had surprised her, making her realize that she was coming into reform school completely unprepared.**

**Arriane nodded, making Luce accidentally snip off a chunk of hair she'd meant to leave. Whoops. Hopefully Arriane wouldn't notice—or maybe she'd just think it was edgy.**

**"Eight classes, ten kids a pop. You get to know everybody's crap pret-ty quickly," Arriane said. "And vice versa."**

**"I guess so," Luce agreed, biting her lip. Arriane was joking, but Luce wondered whether she'd be sitting here with that cool smirk in her pastel blue eyes if she knew the exact nature of Luce's backstory. The longer Luce could keep her past under wraps, the better off she'd be.**

**"And you'll want to steer clear of the hard cases."**

**"Hard cases?"**

"Oh, Arriane. I wish you'd stop giving everything nicknames." Gabbe said.

"Well it stuck didn't it?" Ari said.

"It's good for my reputation." Molly said.

I shook my head.

**"The kids with the wristband tracking devices," Arriane said. "About a third of the student body."**

**"And they're the ones who—"**

**"You don't want to mess with. Trust me."**

**"Well, what'd they do?" Luce asked.**

**As much as Luce wanted to keep her own story a secret, she didn't like the way Arriane was treating her like some sort of ingénue. Whatever those kids had done couldn't be much worse than what everyone told her she had done. Or could it? After all, she knew next to nothing about these people and this place. The possibilities stirred up a cold gray fear in the pit of her stomach.**

**"Oh, you know," Arriane drawled. "Aided and abetted terrorist acts. Chopped up their parents and roasted them on a spit." She turned around to wink at Luce.**

"You're joking, right?" I turned to look at everyone else. "She is joking, isn't she?" Everyone either put their heads down or looked away.

**"Shut up," Luce said.**

**"I'm serious. Those psychos are under much tighter restrictions than the rest of the screw ups here. We call them the shackled."**

**Luce laughed at Arriane's dramatic tone.**

**"Your haircut's done," she said, running her hands through Arriane's hair to fluff it up a little. It actually looked really cool.**

**"Sweet," Arriane said. She turned to face Luce. When she ran her fingers through her hair, the sleeves of her black sweater fell back on her forearms and Luce caught a glimpse of a black wristband, dotted with rows of silver studs, and, on the other wrist, another band that looked more...mechanical. Arriane caught her looking and raised her eyebrows devilishly.**

**"Told ya," she said. "Total effing psychos." She grinned. "Come on, I'll give you the rest of the tour."**

**Luce didn't have much choice. She scrambled down the bleachers after Arriane, ducking when one of the turkey vultures swooped dangerously low. Arriane, who didn't seem to notice, pointed at a lichen-swathed church at the far right of the commons.**

"A church? If they think I'm doing service they can fuck right off." I said and everyone's eyes widened at my choice of words.

"Don't like churches, huh?" Roland asked, smiling.

"I don't like them. It gives me the heeby-jeebies"

"I know exactly what you mean."

**"Over here, you'll find our state-of-the-art gymnasium," she said, assuming a nasal tour guide tone of voice. "Yes, yes, to the untrained eye it looks like a church. It used to be. We're kind of in an architectural hand-me-down Hell here at Sword &amp; Cross. A few years ago, some calisthenic-crazed shrink showed up ranting about overmedicated teens ruining society. He donated a shit-ton of money so they'd convert it into a gym. Now the powers that be think we can work out our 'frustrations' in a 'more natural and productive way.'"**

**Luce groaned. She had always loathed gym class.**

**"Girl after my very own heart," Arriane commiserated. "Coach Diante is ee-vil."**

"I don't mind swimming but I can't run to save my life. And I suck at football and hockey and basketball." I thought back to all my failed attempts at Dover. "Please tell me they have a swimming pool."

"Yeah, they have a swimming pool." Daniel said, a glint in his eyes.

**As Luce jogged to keep up, she took in the rest of the grounds. The Dover quad had been so well kept, all manicured and dotted with evenly spaced, carefully pruned trees. Sword &amp; Cross looked like it had been plopped down and abandoned in the middle of a swamp. Weeping willows dangled to the ground, kudzu grew along the walls in sheets, and every third step they took squished.**

**And it wasn't just the way the place looked. Every humid breath Luce took stuck in her lungs. Just breathing at Sword &amp; Cross made her feel like she was sinking into quicksand.**

**"Apparently the architects got in a huge standoff over how to retrofit the style of the old military academy buildings. The upshot is we ended up with half penitentiary, half medieval torture zone. And no gardener," Arriane said, kicking some slime off her combat boots. "Gross. Oh, and there's the cemetery."**

"They have a cemetery on school grounds? That's just fucked up." I said.

**Luce followed Arriane's pointing finger to the far left side of the quad, just past the dormitory. An even thicker cloak of mist hung over the walled-off portion of land. It was bordered on three sides by a thick forest of oaks. She couldn't see into the cemetery, which seemed almost to sink below the surface of the ground, but she could smell the rot and hear the chorus of cicadas buzzing in the trees. For a second, she thought she saw the dark swish of the shadows—but she blinked and they were gone.**

**"That's a cemetery?"**

**"Yep. This used to be a military academy, way back in the Civil War days. So that's where they buried all their dead. It's creepy as all get-out. And lawd," Arriane said, piling on a fake southern accent, "it stinks to high Heaven." Then she winked at Luce. "We hang out there a lot."**

**Luce looked at Arriane to see if she was kidding. Arriane just shrugged.**

**"Okay, it was only once. And it was only after a really big pharmapalooza."**

**Now, that was a word Luce recognised.**

**"Aha!" Arriane laughed. "I just saw a light go on up there. So somebody is home. Well, Luce, my dear, you may have gone to boarding school parties, but you've never seen a throw-down like reform school kids do it."**

"I actually never went to parties. I was considered the geek. Apparently not so cool anymore."

**"What's the difference?" Luce asked, trying to skirt the fact that she'd never actually been to a big party at Dover.**

**"You'll see." Arriane paused and turned to Luce. "You'll come over tonight and hang out, okay?" She surprised Luce by taking her hand. "Promise?"**

**"But I thought you said I should stay away from the hard cases," Luce joked.**

**"Rule number two—don't listen to me!" Arriane laughed, shaking her head. "I'm certifiably insane!"**

**She started jogging again and Luce trailed after her.**

**"Wait, what was rule number one?"**

**"Keep up!"**

Arriane laughed. "Alright guys, I'm getting a drink." She pushed her chair back and got up with ease. I tried but my butt wasn't leaving the seat.

"Hey, Ari?" She turned around.

"Hmm?"

"Please can you get me one too?" I tried to get put of the seat but I was stuck. "I'm trapped."

"Sure thing L.P."

**As they came around the corner of the cinder-block classrooms, Arriane skidded to a halt. "Affect cool," she said.**

**"Cool," Luce repeated.**

**All the other students seemed to be clustered around the kudzu-strangled trees outside Augustine. No one looked exactly happy to be hanging out, but no one looked ready to go inside yet, either.**

**There hadn't been much of a dress code at Dover, so Luce wasn't used to the uniformity it gave a student body. Then again, even though every kid here was wearing the same black jeans, black mock-turtleneck T-shirt, and black sweater tied over the shoulders or around the waist, there were still substantial differences in the way they pulled it off.**

**A group of tattooed girls standing in a crossed-armed circle wore bangle bracelets up to their elbows. The black bandanas in their hair reminded Luce of a film she'd once seen about motorcycle-gang girls. She'd rented it because she'd thought: What could be cooler than an all-girls motorcycle gang? Now Luce's eyes locked with those of one of the girls across the lawn. The sideways squint of the girl's darkly lined cat-eyes made Luce quickly shift the direction of her gaze.**

"I thought you said no cliques?" I said.

"There aren't. People with alike personalities hang around together. They're not really cliques but more like friend groups." Gabbe replied.

**A guy and a girl who were holding hands had sewn sequins in the shape of skulls and crossbones on the back of their black sweaters. Every few seconds, one of them would pull the other in for a kiss on the temple, on the earlobe, on the eye. When they looped their arms around each other, Luce could see that each wore the blinking wristband tracking device. They looked a little rough, but it was obvious how much in love they were. Every time she saw their tongue rings flashing, Luce felt a lonely pinch inside her chest.**

**Behind the lovers, a cluster of blond boys stood pressed against the wall. Each of them wore his sweater, despite the heat. And they all had on white oxford shirts underneath, the collars starched straight up. Their black pants hit the vamps of their polished dress shoes perfectly. Of all the students on the quad, these boys seemed to Luce to be the closest thing to Doverites. But a closer look quickly set them apart from boys she used to know. Boys like Trevor.**

**Just standing in a group, these guys radiated a specific kind of toughness. It was right there in the look in their eyes. It was hard to explain, but it suddenly struck Luce that just like her, everyone at this school had a past. Everyone here probably had secrets they wouldn't want to share. But she couldn't figure out whether this realisation made her feel more or less isolated.**

I could see where I was coming from. Arriane came over and placed the glass filled with Apple juice next to me.

"Thanks." Arriane winked at me secretly and I wondered what she was on about. I brought the drink to my lips and it was definitely Apple juice but...there was something different. I took another sip and then it hit me - vodka. My eyes widened at Arriane who discreetly put a finger to her lips.

**Arriane noticed Luce's eyes running over the rest of the kids.**

**"We all do what we can to make it through the day," she said, shrugging. "But in case you hadn't observed the low-hanging vultures, this place pretty much reeks of death." She took a seat on a bench under a weeping willow and patted the spot next to her for Luce.**

**Luce wiped away a mound of wet, decaying leaves, but just before she sat down, she noticed another dress code violation.**

**A very attractive dress code violation.**

"Oooooooooh," Arriane said, "I wonder who that could be."

**He wore a bright red scarf around his neck. It was far from cold outside, but he had on a black leather motorcycle jacket over his black sweater, too. Maybe it was because his was the only spot of color on the quad, but he was all that Luce could look at. In fact, everything else so paled in comparison that, for one long moment, Luce forgot where she was.**

"Ok, this is embarrassing. I don't want to read about my thoughts on a guy." I looked around. "Especially not in front of people!"

**She took in his deep golden hair and matching tan. His high cheekbones, the dark sunglasses that covered his eyes, the soft shape of his lips. In all the movies Luce had seen, and in all the books she'd read, the love interest was mind-blowingly good-looking—except for that one little flaw. The chipped tooth, the charming cowlick, the beauty mark on his left cheek. She knew why—if the hero was too unblemished, he'd risk being unapproachable. But approachable or not, Luce had always had a weakness for the sublimely gorgeous. Like this guy.**

I could feel the heat rising to my cheeks. And a quick glance around, I found Daniels cheeks in more or less the same state as mine.

**He leaned up against the building with his arms crossed lightly over his chest. And for a split second, Luce saw a flashing image of herself folded into those arms. She shook her head, but the vision stayed so clear that she almost took off toward him.**

**No. That was crazy. Right? Even at a school full of crazies, Luce was well aware that this instinct was insane. She didn't even know him.**

My brows furrowed. I looked straight in front of me again. Daniel. High cheek bones...Golden hair, golden skin...Full, gorgeous lips...Oh. My. God. It's Daniel. It's Daniel!

**He was talking to a shorter kid with dreads and a toothy smile. Both of them were laughing hard and genuinely—in a way that made Luce strangely jealous. She tried to think back and remember how long it had been since she'd laughed, really laughed, like that.**

"Ok, I get it. It's Daniel and Roland. " Annabelle said. My cheeks were on fire and I was sure I was burning up.

**"That's Daniel Grigori," Arriane said, leaning in and reading her mind. "I can tell he's attracted somebody's attention."**

**"Understatement," Luce agreed, embarrassed when she realised how she must have looked to Arriane.**

**"Yeah, well, if you like that sort of thing."**

"Thanks a bunch Ari!" Daniel said.

"Ouch, that's gotta hurt." Cam said.

**"What's not to like?" Luce said, unable to stop the words from tumbling out.**

I face palmed my face and face the chuckling people surrounding me. "I know! Daniel's hot, so what? Sue me." As soon as I said it, everyone laughed harder.

**"His friend there is Roland," Arriane said, nodding in the dreadlocked kid's direction. "He's cool. The kind of guy who can get his hands on things, ya know?"**

**Not really, Luce thought, biting her lip. "What kinds of things?"**

**Arriane shrugged, using her poached Swiss Army knife to saw off a fraying strand from a rip in her black jeans. "Just things. Ask-and-you-shall-receive kind of stuff."**

**"What about Daniel?" Luce asked. "What's his story?"**

**"Oh, she doesn't give up." Arriane laughed, then cleared her throat.**

"What do you mean I don't give up?" I said.

"Oh, shit." She mumbled. "It doesn't matter."

**"No one really knows," she said. "He holds pretty tight to his mystery man persona. Could just be your typical reform school asshole."**

**"I'm no stranger to assholes," Luce said, though as soon as the words came out, she wished she could take them back. After what had happened to Trevor—whatever had happened—she was the last person who should be making character judgments. But more than that, the rare time she made even the smallest reference to that night, the shifting black canopy of the shadows came back to her, almost like she was right back at the lake.**

**She glanced again at Daniel. He took his glasses off and slid them inside his jacket, then turned to look at her.**

**His gaze caught hers, and Luce watched as his eyes widened and then quickly narrowed in what looked like surprise. But no—it was more than that. When Daniel's eyes held hers, her breath caught in her throat. She recognized him from somewhere.**

"I knew it! I knew you looked familiar. Even my future self recognises it!" I said to Daniel.

**But she would have remembered meeting someone like him. She would have remembered feeling as absolutely shaken up as she did right now.**

**She realised they were still locking eyes when Daniel flashed her a smile. A jet of warmth shot through her and she had to grip the bench for support. She felt her lips pull up in a smile back at him, but then he raised his hand in the air.**

**And flipped her off.**

"You did WHAT?" Ari screamed.

"Daniel, how could you?" Gabbe said.

"That's low, Danny, even for you." Cam said.

"Wow, that's been the highlight of my day." Molly said. "So tragic."

"Hey! My future self did that not me. I wouldn't do that to Luce." He said to me and my heart fluttered like crazy.

**Luce gasped and dropped her eyes.**

**"What?" Arriane asked, oblivious to what had just gone down. "Never mind," she said. "We don't have time. I sense the bell."**

**The bell rang as if on cue, and the whole student body started the slow shuffle into the building. Arriane was tugging on Luce's hand and spouting off directions about where to meet her next and when. But Luce was still reeling from being flipped the bird by such a perfect stranger. Her momentary delirium over Daniel had vanished, and now the only thing she wanted to know was: What was that guy's problem?**

**Just before she ducked into her first class, she dared to glance back. His face was blank, but there was no mistaking it—he was watching her go.**

"Well that's the end of Chapter 1." I took another drink and downed it all.

"I think I wanna read Chapter 2." Cam said and I handed it to him.

"Be my guest."


End file.
